Full Sail Stories

Ideal for the problem-solver, Full Sail’s Media Design MFA program invites students to gain a more in-depth understanding of design, its impact, and its varied applications. In the accelerated master’s program, students explore how to develop compelling designs, effectively communicate to target demographics, and provide clients or employers with a well-rounded approach to design.

“If you enjoy solving problems, then heck yeah, this is for you. If you don't, then there are, of course, other things you can get out of this degree program. But to really succeed in this profession, you have to enjoy a good problem,” shares instructor and designer Ryan McClung, who teaches two classes – Defining Client Needs and Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution – in the Media Design master’s program.

Ryan, who works in brand management when he isn’t teaching, has helped his clients refine and elevate their brands across a variety of industries. With 20-plus years in design, Ryan is able to bring his experience directly to the classroom.

“No matter what you do in any creative field, you're working with a brand. If you're making movies, that movie is a brand, right?” Ryan asks. “So everything that students are learning throughout this degree program is applicable to pretty much any creative field, not just media design necessarily, especially the conceptual information.”

At the front end of the program, Ryan introduces his students to working with a client, an enterprise, or on any design-related brief in Defining Client Needs.

“[In Defining Client Needs], we need to get the ball rolling on some of the really big concepts that they're going to be learning throughout the entire degree program,” says Ryan. “We need to get them up to speed with the hard skills, but at the same time, get everyone comfortable with the idea of thinking through the why of what they're doing.”

Over the four weeks, students explore the conceptual meaning behind design, starting in week one by replicating the works of famed architect and interior designer Alexander Girard. In weeks two and three, students select a prominent graphic designer in the industry and create a poster to attract an audience for a fictitious gallery event. “They're selecting [a designer] that really resonates with them in terms of style and attributes, and that's going to be the graphic designer they work with throughout the rest of the class,” says Ryan.

By week four, students are introduced to Gestalt principles – the laws of human perception that describe how humans group similar elements, recognize patterns, and simplify complex images – and are applying those principles to their refined gallery advertisement.

“All along the way, they're rationalizing every week. They're rationalizing their design decisions. They're explaining who the designer is, showing and explaining pieces of inspiration, and then explaining and rationalizing persuasively how and why their produced art achieves the intended purpose.”

On the precipice of graduation, students meet Ryan again for Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution to finish the thesis project they’ve worked on throughout the program.

“[When students start their thesis project earlier in the degree program], they build out a brand identity from the ground up, starting with a brand statement, voice and tone, look and feel, vision board, logo development, media assets, style guide, all that stuff over the course of four months, including rounds of testing,” says Ryan.

When they get to his classroom in month 11 of the program for Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution, it's time to prove their competencies. “Their task is to prove to me that their brand identity works, and they have to do so by explaining it in the context of our four program learning outcomes: research, solving problems, collaboration, and acquiring competencies.”

In the four-week course, students develop a website that serves as a case study for the brand identity they’ve spent the last four months developing. In this process, Ryan encourages students to focus not so much on the end result, but on the process that got them there.

“I tell students that for the [completed website], be it the colors you selected, the typographical considerations, the logo, whatever, I'm not nearly as interested in those things as I am in the story of how you got there. I want to know about all of the failed experiments, all of the explored typefaces that you considered but ultimately rejected in favor of the most effective of them. Ultimately, working to persuade me and future viewers that the brand identity that they produce effectively solves the defined problem.”